Story

perhaps should have been yelling "R&D! R&D! R&D! R&D!"

What is the deal with huge companies having great lab projects that just never get "monetized" until the idea is picked up by someone else?

From Xerox PARC to Bell Labs to MS... They turned their tabletop "Surface" research into overpriced underwhelming touchscreen laptops, and their interesting "Courier" pad never saw the light of day. Now others are building touch tabletops and whiteboards, and of course iOS and Android own mobile touch computing. Some of their software projects (I recall a photo stitching effort) also reside in obscurity.

So of course now they start dumping one of the few areas of the company that really is an engine of innovation (contrary to all massive lip service applied to that "i" word by them and everyone else). Sigh.